An anonymous reader writes: An article at The Verge makes the case that Apple's development of its cloud services hasn't been accompanied by the necessary effort to ramp up security to match users' increasing levels of risk. As evidence, they use a recent (and very simple) security hole that allowed anyone to reset an Apple ID password with just a user's email address and birth date. Apple's initial response failed to fully stop the exploit, and then it took several days for them to roll out a fix. "A server-side attack on Apple’s cloud could get customers’ credit card numbers and addresses, device backups with their encryption keys — as well as contacts and Apple IDs — anonymously and in bulk. Those systems may be defended like a castle, but bandits have plenty of places to chip away at private information at the periphery: intercepting wireless location data, cracking the still-private protocols for services like FaceTime or iMessage, or imitating iTunes updates to install to take over a user’s phone. There’s nothing sexy about securing these systems. None of them contribute directly to Apple’s bottom line. And when it came to securing a business netting it an estimated $2 billion each year, Apple locked the screen door and left the front door open, without asking anyone else to check that the house was safe." The article also points out that many other cloud service providers have detailed privacy and security policies, and actively participate in developing best practices, whereas Apple's procedures are shrouded in the company's typical secrecy. The article comes alongside reports of a way for people to DDoS other users' iMessage box.Link to Original Source

An anonymous reader writes: In fact, it is an almost certainty that within the next few years, three biometric options will become standard features in every new phone: a fingerprint scanner built into the screen, facial recognition powered by high-definition cameras, and voice recognition based off a large collection of your vocal samples.Link to Original Source

Steve Patterson writes: Tizen is clumsily positioned directly against Android and iOS. Its backers — Samsung, Intel, the Linux foundation, and a large community of open source developers with experience competing with and against market-leading OS platforms — are not that naive. Naïveté aside, Tizen can play an important role.Link to Original Source

SkinnyGuy writes: While tech sites have been chasing each other's tails over a "new" Apple patent for a smart-pen-like device, the reality is much more interesting. This is the only story with the truth and insights from the actual inventor.Link to Original Source

optikos writes: "When it comes to the fill-rate fraction/ratio of digital-domain Ethernet frames in the underlying analog-domain physical medium, a senior network architect at Google wants to have more flexibility regarding the denominator to push a link's typical fill-rate closer to 100%. The current scheme of inter-Ethernet-frame idle capacity as represented by a numerator that is notably smaller than the (currently-standardized fixed-size) denominator in the fill-rate is claimed to be unsuitable when interconnecting data-centers.

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc. (IEEE) isn't working on a variable-speed Ethernet standard yet, but Google is pushing for one.
It was a point of focus for Bikash Koley, Google's principal architect and manager of network architecture, during a panel session on the last day of OFC/NFOEC last week. What he wants is variable-speed Ethernet. So, instead of running a connection at 100 Gbit/s or 400 Gbit/s, which are the two standard choices, he'd like to pick arbitrary speeds. The technology on the optical side is actually ready for what he's asking. Variable-speed transceivers and flexible-grid ROADMs exist. What's missing is on the packet side: a media access control (MAC) layer that's capable of dealing with a variable-bit-rate physical (PHY) layer.

DavidGilbert99 writes: "The trouble with in-app purchases continues, this time leading to a father being forced to report his own son, 13, for fraud after he racked up a £3,700 bill on his iPad and iPod. Doug Crossan said he had to report his son for fraud to substantiate his claim for fraud."Link to Original Source

An Apple ID can essentially be the keys to the Kingdom when it comes to Apple devices and user maintained data, and as Apple explains, is the “ key to many important things you do with Apple, such as purchasing from the iTunes and App Stores, keeping personal information up-to-date across your devices with iCloud, and locating, locking, or wiping your devices.”

skade88 writes: Wow! Color me green on this one! I am normally very critical of Apple's business practices, but this one is just perfect all around! Apple now owns and runs enough renewable energy power plants that 75% of their world wide power needs come from renewable sources such as wind, solar, geothermal and hydro.

From the Apple Blog Post: 'Our investments are paying off. We’ve already achieved 100 percent renewable energy at all of our data centers, at our facilities in Austin, Elk Grove, Cork, and Munich, and at our Infinite Loop campus in Cupertino. And for all of Apple’s corporate facilities worldwide, we’re at 75 percent, and we expect that number to grow as the amount of renewable energy available to us increases. We won’t stop working until we achieve 100 percent throughout Apple.'

Any other big power hungry data centers want to step up and join Apple on this one? Im looking at you Google and Rackspace!Link to Original Source

Steve Patterson writes: Thankfully, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt has announced that "Android and Chrome will remain separate." Rumors that the products would be combined emerged last week when leadership of Android and Chrome were consolidated under Google Senior Vice President Sundar Pichai. Schmidt stated the obvious, but if you are a developer and you took the bait and thought the rumors might be true, you already read enough of Google Chrome or Google Android documentation before Schmidt’s clarification and confirmed that consolidating the two products would be, well, stupid.Link to Original Source

Nerval's Lobster writes: "Why did Apple hire former Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch as vice president of technology? Adobe and Apple spent years fighting a much-publicized battle over the latter’s decision to ban Adobe Flash from iOS devices. Former Apple CEO Steve Jobs was very public in his condemnation of Flash as a tool for rich-content playback, denigrating it in an April 2010 letter posted on Apple’s Website as flawed with regard to battery life, security, reliability and performance. Lynch was very much the public face of Adobe’s public-relations pushback to Apple’s criticism; in a corporate video shot for an Adobe developer conference in 2009, he even helped run an iPhone over with a steamroller. (Hat tip to Daring Fireball’s John Gruber for digging that video up.) As recently as 2010, he was still arguing that Flash was superior to HTML5, which eventually surpassed it to become the virtual industry standard for Web-based rich content. It’s interesting to speculate whether Steve Jobs would have hired someone who so publicly denigrated Apple’s flagship product. But Jobs is dead, and his corporate successors in Cupertino—tasked with leading Apple through a period of fierce competition—obviously looked at Lynch and decided he’d make a perfect fit as an executive."Link to Original Source

Sparrowvsrevolution writes: Apple has released a new update for iOS that prevents the jailbreak evasi0n released last month. But that hacking tool has already become the most popular jailbreak ever: It's been used to remove the software restrictions on 18.2 million devices in the 43 days between its release and the patch, according to data from Cydia, the app store for jailbroken devices. In its announcement of the update, Apple says it has fixed six bugs and was polite enough to credit the hackers behind evasi0n with finding four of them. At least one of the bugs used by evasi0n remains unpatched, according to David Wang, one of evasi0n's creators. And Wang says that he and his fellow hackers still have bugs in reserve for a new jailbreak, although they plan to keep them secret until the next major release.Link to Original Source

An anonymous reader writes: Miguel de Icaza is at it again. The open source guru who led the Gnome and Mono projects is now talking about the mobile platform wars. De Icaza, who has a history of being anti-Apple, says he originally “dismissed” the iPhone as marketing fluff, but has come around to its charms. And he sees Microsoft remaining a distant third in what he calls the “two-horse race” in mobile between Apple and Google. His latest startup, Xamarin, helps Windows developers write iOS and Android apps in C#, which de Icaza argues makes for more creative and less buggy software. (Xamarin’s most recent release lets developers do this all in Visual Studio.) Is this the death knell for Windows Phone?Link to Original Source

redkemper writes: Samsung’s Galaxy S 4 might not offer much in the way of an exciting new exterior design, but inside, it’s a completely different story. The retooled internals on the U.S. version of the Galaxy S 4 were put to the test by benchmark specialists Primate Labs and the results are impressive, to say the least. The Galaxy S 4 scored a 3,163 on the standard Geekbench 2 speed test, just shy of twice the iPhone 5s score of 1,596. That score was also good enough to top the upcoming HTC One, the Nexus 4 and the previous-generation Galaxy S III. The chart below shows the Galaxy S 4s results compared to other leading smartphones tested by Primate Labs...Link to Original Source

An anonymous reader writes: I work in Telecommunications for a large Canadian carrier.. I often get asked 'How to block numbers' by our customers. While I know the technical ability by the carrier to do this exists for whatever reason we do not extend this service to customers. So I'm wondering. On a standard, non-rooted device. Much like you iOS Lovers which do not have such options to root your device:P Or the not so savvy Android users that do not care to root their device. What avenues are you aware of to block numbers? Any apps you guys know that actually work? Rooted/Jailbroken solutions are welcome as well. But keep in mind most consumers are not of that variety unfortunately.

anderzole writes: With Samsung set to release its Samsung Galaxy S IV tomorrow in New York City, the South Korea based company has certainly learned a thing or two about creating a media buzz prior to a product launch. Previously, that was a talent that only Apple seemed to have mastered.

What’s more, Samsung has also proven rather shrewd at another one of Apple’s historic specialties – advertising. Not only are its latest people-centric ads resonating with consumers, they also bash Apple fans and iPhone users in the process. That’s a lot of bang for the buck.

And speaking of bucks, Samsung isn’t shy about spending a lot of its money on advertising efforts either. While Apple outspent Samsung by a factor of 3-1 in mobile advertising in 2011, Samsung stepped up its game in a major way in 2012. Last year, Samsung outspent Apple by $64 million in mobile advertising. Specifically, Apple spent $333 million on its advertising efforts while Samsung spent $401 million.Link to Original Source

jfruh writes: "HTTPS has long been a part of good Web security strategy, but apparently Apple didn't get the memo. The company's wildly successful app store for iOS didn't encrypt traffic via HTTPS by default until January 23 of this year. The researcher who discovered ways to exploit this vulnerability says he alerted Apple back in July of 2012."Link to Original Source